Amusement park attractions • The
Fairy Tale Forest () of the
amusement park Efteling in the Netherlands has a three-dimensional attraction showing the story of the Little Match Girl, called . In this attraction, use is made of the
Pepper's ghost technique.
Anime and manga • The 52nd and final episode of
Andersen Monogatari (1971) is based on the story. • In the episode 307 of
Crayon Shin-chan, "Nene-chan is the Tragedy Heroine" (1999), the story inspires Nene-chan to play the
Cinderella game with her friends. • In ''
Hello Kitty's Animation Theater'' an episode is an adaptation of this tale, complete with its grim ending. • In
Is the Order a Rabbit?, Sharo starts daydreaming while handing out flyers, humorously seeing it as a death flag when she connects her actions to the match girl. • Chapter 18 of the manga series
Binbou Shimai Monogatari (2004) replays the tale of "The Little Match Girl", featuring the protagonists Asu and Kyou with a happy ending twist. • In Chapter 24 (Volume 3) of
Love Hina,
Su makes
Shinobu dress up as a
Little Red Riding Hood-type and sell matches to raise some travelling money to
Okinawa. When that plot initially fails and Shinobu starts to cry, a good number of passers-by are moved to tears and prepare to buy all her matches until the two girls are chased off by resident
yakuza. • In the Japanese anime
Gakuen Alice, the main character,
Mikan Sakura, puts on a play about the Little Match Girl to earn money. • Episode 201 of
Gintama, "Everybody's a Santa", parodies "The Little Match Girl", where
Yagyu Kyubei narrates a humorous retelling of the story, featuring
Kagura as the eponymous title character, replacing matchsticks with , a human punching bag. • "Girl Who Doesn't Sell Matches But is Misfortunate Anyway" is the final episode of the 2010 anime series
Ōkami-san, which draws inspiration from various fairy tales. The episode features a character called Machiko Himura, who is based on the Little Match Girl. • "The Little Key Frames Girl", episode 11 of the anime
Shirobako (2014), humorously replays the whole match girl story from a more modern and lower stakes point of view. • In "Christmas Osomatsu-san", episode 11 of the anime
Osomatsu-san (2015), Iyami humorously acts as the Little Match Girl, dying in the end. •
Match Shoujo, a manga by Sanami Suzuki (2014–15), is being made into a live-action film starring
Sumire Sato as the title character. • In "Let's Get Wiggy With It", episode 2 of the anime
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (2003–2005), Don Patch humorously recites a story of him selling churros at Christmas time with no one buying, showing a
churro buried and covered in snow in the end, resembling death. • In "Troupe Dragon, On Stage! (They Had a Troupe Name, Huh)", episode 10 of the anime ''
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid'' (2017), the main characters decide to stage a performance of "The Little Match Girl" for a nursing home on Christmas. Throughout the episode, the characters add their own ideas to the story (such as
magical girls and the
forty-seven rōnin), to the point that the performance bears virtually no resemblance to the original. • In
YuruYuri Season 3 episode 10, Akari and Kyoko light matches to keep themselves warm when the Kotatsu does not work. They see visions of shaved ice and a turkey dinner. They both survive however. • The cover art for chapter 43 (vol. 3) of ''
Komi Can't Communicate'' features Komi-san dressed up as the Little Match Girl in a snowy street holding a lit match. •
One Piece cover story from chapter 247 shows former king Wapol, at that point a beggar, selling matches in a snowy street with the subtitles "I'm the little match girl". • In
Isekai Quartet season 2 episode 11 "It Begins! School Festival", Yunyun (a recurring character originally from
KonoSuba whose running joke is that she is always alone) acts out a play version of the story solo. • In
Flint the Time Detective the main characters visit Hans Christian Andersen who is trapped in his own dreams and having his own creations acting oddly. Among them, the Little Match Girl is selling watches instead of matches. • In episode 7 of the
Nekopara OVA, the catgirls recount various fairy tales. Among them, is a retelling of "The Little Match Girl" by Maple – starring Cinnamon as the titular character – which is restructured in parodic fashion. Namely, Cinnamon visualizes sensual fantasies rather than the idyllic visions found in the original telling. • In season 4 episode 6 of
Date A Live, while in the fairy tale world Kotori is based on the Little Match Girl.
Audio recordings •
Danny Kaye reads "The Match Girl" on Side B of ''Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales
(Golden Records, 1962), later re-issued on CD as part of Danny Kaye Re-tells Grimm's & Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales'' (Golden Records, 2008) • The record "Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol" published by
Peter Pan Records features a reading on the B side.
Comics • In issue #112 of
Bill Willingham's
Fables (a
comic book series about living embodiments of storybook characters), the Little Match Girl is introduced to
Rose Red as one of the paladins of
the embodiment of Hope, ostensibly on the night that the girl is doomed to die (Christmas Eve, in this telling). The child identifies herself as "the caretaker of hope deferred", braving the deadly cold and saving the meager pennies she earns towards the promise of a better life in the future, and stubbornly denying that her death is close at hand.
Films 16mm short subject films • In 1954,
Castle Films released a 16 mm English-language version of a 1952
black-and-white French short live-action film. Instead of her grandmother, the
Virgin Mary, whom the match girl believes is her own long-lost mother, takes the girl to Heaven. No mention is made of the father beating the child.
Animated films •
The Little Match Girl (1937), one of the
Color Rhapsodies, a
Charles Mintz studio color cartoon adaptation set in 1930s
New York City, directed by
Arthur Davis and Sid Marcus, and considered among the studio's best films. It was nominated for the 1937
Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), though it lost to
Disney's short
The Old Mill. This version of the story is slightly different from Andersen's story, specifically near the end. •
Hans Christian Andersen no Sekai (1971,
The World of Hans Christian Andersen), is an animated film by
Toei Animation based on Andersen's works. • In the 1978 animated adaptation of "
The Stingiest Man in Town", the character
Ebenezer Scrooge is seen passing by a caricature of the little match girl. • American composer
David Lang completed his own rendition of the original story in 2007.
The Little Match Girl Passion is scored for four solo voices, soprano, alto, tenor and bass, with percussion, and was written for
Paul Hillier and his ensemble
Theater of Voices. The work was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize in music in 2008. It presents Hans Christian Andersen's tale in Lang's characteristic post-minimalist style with thematic influence from
Johann Sebastian Bach's
St. John and
St. Matthew Passions. • In 2012,
The Crüxshadows recorded the song "Matchstick Girl" on their album
As the Dark Against My Halo, which according to the band's frontman, Rogue, refers to Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. • Tori Amos's 2015 musical
The Light Princess includes the song "My Fairy-Story", where the main character reads this story and compares it to her own situation. • In 2015, Japanese techno-rap unit
Wednesday Campanella produced the song "" (, 'The Little Match Girl'). • In 2016,
Mack Wilberg wrote a rendition of the original story for narrator, choir, and orchestra, with lyrics by David Warner. It was first performed during the 2016 Christmas Concert of
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, with
Rolando Villazon as the narrator. • The music video for
Loona's song "
Heart Attack" (2008) is an adaptation of the story. • In 2021, Chengdu-based rapper
MaSiWei released "Little Match Girl" (), which alludes to this story. • In November 2023,
StarKid Productions and composer Clark Baxtresser's musical
VHS Christmas Carols premiered live at the Apollo Theater in Chicago, featuring a segment based on
The Little Match Girl. Originally a 2020 virtual show based solely on
Charles Dickens'
A Christmas Carol that would receive a live run and recording in 2021, a first act was added in 2023 to adapt
Match Girl in addition to
O. Henry's
The Gift of the Magi.
Television • In 1974, a contemporarized version set in
Cincinnati on Christmas Eve was aired on
WLWT. This Christmas special was placed in syndication and last aired on the
CBN Cable Network in December 1982. It is notable for featuring a 9 year old
Sarah Jessica Parker. • In 1986,
HTV released
The Little Match Girl as a musical based on the original story. The cast included
Twiggy and
Roger Daltrey. It included the song "
Mistletoe and Wine", which became a Christmas hit in the UK two years later for
Cliff Richard. •
The Little Match Girl (1987) is an
NBC television film directed by
Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and starring
Keshia Knight Pulliam,
William Daniels,
John Rhys-Davies, and
Rue McClanahan. The film received a mixed reception from critics. • In 1990, a modernized version set to original music and narrated by
F. Murray Abraham was presented by
HBO Storybook Musicals, in which the girl is the daughter of a homeless New York couple forced to live underground in an abandoned subway station due to the economic collapse of the 1990s. • Uwe Janson directed an adaptation titled in 2013. ==See also==